Eric LeMarque's Harrowing Tale Of Survival Subject Of New Film

Friday the 13th may be a superstitious day to most, filled with negative and eerie happenings. For Eric LeMarque, Friday the 13th was a day of salvation. A second chance. A light to guide him from the dark.
Following eight days lost, alone, and on the brink of death in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, the former professional hockey player Eric LeMarque was found — and reborn.
That day was Friday, February 13, 2004.
“It isn’t a superstitious day for me,” LeMarque said. “If anything, it’s the day I was rescued and a day where I was given this second chance at life and an opportunity to share my story with the world.”
LeMarque’s harrowing tale of pro hockey player turned drug addict who gets lost in the frozen wilderness for more than a week and has since turned his life around is shared in the new film 6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain, open in theaters and available On Demand/Digital HD on — you guessed it — Friday, Oct. 13.
Call it coincidence. Irony. An act of God. Fate.
The film stars Josh Hartnett (Black Hawk Down, Pearl Harbor) as LeMarque and Academy Award winner Mira Sorvino (Aphrodite) as his mother, Susan. It’s directed by Scott Waugh (Need For Speed, Act of Valor), who, coincidentally, played youth hockey with LeMarque for six years.

LeMarque’s story began full of promise as he rose to the ranks of pro hockey player, selected by the Boston Bruins in the 1987 NHL Draft. He also represented France at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, scoring a goal. After bouncing around in the minor leagues in the United States and playing in France and Germany, LeMarque began searching for a new high; something that can give him the same energy and excitement he lived and breathed daily on the ice.
He became addicted to crystal meth and thus ensued a downward spiral of drugs and isolation. LeMarque also took up snowboarding, now getting his thrills from the powder on the mountain and the powder he snorted up his nose.
On Feb. 6, 2004, despite an impending storm on the horizon, LeMarque took to the mountains. As the sunlight waned, LeMarque boarded down an uncharted run on Mammoth Mountain. Once he got to a flat part, he started walking in the direction he thought would bring him back to safety. It didn’t. He was lost.

Armed with minimal clothing, a dying cellphone, a few pieces of gum, a pack of wet matches, an MP3 player and a bag of meth, LeMarque was in for the fight of his life.
“My reckless addictions weren’t as strong as my human will was to survive,” LeMarque said. “People always tell me, ‘I’m not sure I could have done it,’ but I alway say, ‘Don’t underestimate human will.’”
LeMarque did all he could to survive. He ate tree bark and pine needles. He drank his own urine. He ate bits of his own flesh that were peeling off from frostbite. He dug trenches in the snow to try to hide from the elements. He shoved foliage into his clothes as an extra — albeit scratchy and uncomfortable — layer of insulation. He even dumped what was left of his meth stash to utilize the plastic bag as a container to melt snow into consumable water.
For more than a week, LeMarque had to not only conquer the harsh elements, but he had to conquer his own demons and addictions. Finally, on the eighth day — Friday the 13th — salvation in the form of a helicopter came down from above and saved LeMarque, who was on the brink of death.
Frostbite took both of his legs from below the knee, but he still had his life. He was given a second chance to turn things around, to stop doing drugs, to be a better son, to be a better person.
“It’s so silly I associated fun with substance and artificial highs that literally now have swept my legs out from underneath me,” he said. “Part of me had to die so I could live again. I had to put the boy to bed and the man in me learned to ask for help and seek the resources to survive.”

Eric LeMarque lost both legs to frostbite

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